Here With Me
by Penelope Applegate
Summary: When Aang is called away, Katara is left lonely and vulnerable. *oneshot* warning: sad sad sad.


**Ever heard that song "Here With Me" by Dido? It was the theme song to one of my favorite shows as a teenager, Roswell. (Showing my age, here.) I heard that song recently, and it inspired the basis of this one shot. Of course, I like to embellish things as I go. You're welcome.**

* * *

I wake slowly, in a haze, vision blurred, reaching for your side of the bed but grasping only air. As I do every day, I frown and wonder where you could be. Gradually, painfully, it dawns on me.

I wake like this every day since you left. I remember sitting up in bed with you, late at night, as the tears fell in cascades, and I begged you not to go. You held my head in my hands and kissed my forehead so tenderly that my heart shattered into a million little dagger-sharp splinters. You promised you wouldn't be away for long. You swore it to me. You said you would come back to me as soon as you could.

And yet, I still wake alone. Every. Single. Day.

At first, I would get up and pretend to go about my day. I would force myself to bathe. I would tidy up around the room. I would venture out into Zuko's palace, where you left me for safe keeping with Suki, Mai, and Toph. It was amusing at first, watching Toph stomp the halls in silent fury, often misplacing (intentionally or unintentionally, I may never know) random tiles in the floor which sometimes sent a servant stumbling and tumbling down the hall. She was angry with you - _is_ angry with you - for leaving her behind.

"I'm not a babysitter, Aang, I'm an earthbender," I overheard her attacking you in the hall just days before you left.

"I know that, Toph," you attempted to calm her in that smooth voice of yours that I find so sexy. "But she needs you here. _I_ need you here, to watch over her. That assignment is more important than anything."

"No, _you_ need me with you," she shot back hotly. "I'm one of your strongest allies, and you know it. I'm better than all of those old earthbenders you rounded up put together, and you know that too."

"I _do_ know that," you said, and I know you weren't saying so just to placate her - you know just as much as I do that it is true. "Why do you think I want you here so badly?" There was silence as Toph refused to answer you. There was something she didn't want to acknowledge. "I can't bring her with me, Toph. It wouldn't be safe. For her _or_ the baby."

Toph exhaled in an angry, loud puff. "I still don't understand why it's _me_ who has to be the babysitter," she grumbled sourly.

I could almost hear your grin with your next words: "Because you're the best, Toph. Because you're my friend."

Her voice rose quickly to cut you off. "I swear to the earth, Twinkle Toes, if you _ever_ ruffle my hair again..."

Her empty threat went ignored by you. "I mean it," you said quietly. "I don't want to leave her here alone. I don't want to leave her at all. It's not a good time... it's the _worst_ timing. I have to know there's someone here keeping them safe."

There was another pause in the conversation as Toph carefully considered your words and probably fought against releasing a slew of her own. "Fine," she said at last. "Fine. I'll stay."

Somewhere along the timeline of our travels and friendship, a crazy thing happened. Toph fell for you. It breaks my heart to remember watching those feelings grow in her, to see the dejection in her eyes as you all but ignored her and lavished all of your attention on me. I was once smug about it, a foolish eighteen year old girl who thought she was something special because she was the Avatar's forever girl. You were oblivious, and I liked it that way. You had no idea.

The look of pain in her eyes the day we got married broke me - because even though her heart was breaking, she was smiling. She was happy for us. She loved both of us. Never once had she even spoken of her feelings, at least not to one, and never once had she overstepped her boundaries.

I never talked to you about her feelings. I wish I had. I wish you had known what you were doing to her - I wish you understood. I wouldn't have been pleased that you had taken her but not me, but I know I could have trusted both of you. I don't think knowing would have changed your mind in the least, anyway. You probably would still have left her with me.

I used to practice bending, what little I was allowed to do. Suki and Mai were tasked with watching me like a hawk, and they studiously obeyed their commission. They forced me to take breaks, and it was they, not I, who decided when I was done for the day.

I felt like a prisoner at first, and I was so angry. I was angry at you for leaving me. I was angry that I had to be pregnant at this awful time. I felt helpless and lost. I thought my first pregnancy would be happy. I thought I would enjoy it with you by my side. I thought you would be there for the first kicks, whispering sweet things to my belly in bed every night before we snuggled up together. Those images were shattered, and in their place was the fear that you may not even make it back before the birth of our first child.

Then there was that awful night.

I'd awoken that morning feeling off. Something wasn't right. I had a headache, and I felt more dazed than usual. Suki saw how pale I was at breakfast and ordered me back to bed. She even followed me to make sure I listened. I was bitter about the intervention, but I know she was worried. Suki and Mai kept popping in all day to make sure I was feeling all right. I wasn't, but not in any way that I could describe.

I could hear Toph stomping by during the day. She wouldn't come in, but she would stop by the door for a moment, as if listening and sensing. Then she would leave, probably once she detected a heartbeat.

It was well into the night that I was brutally yanked from sleep by the most horrific pain in my lower abdomen. I sleepily concluded I'd been stabbed in my sleep and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I anxiously ran my hands over my stomach but found no wound. And then I felt it... the sticky wetness that saturated my legs and my sheets. That was about the time that Mai and Suki burst into the room in their bedroom robes and bare feet.

Suki reached me first, falling at my bedside as Mai worked quickly to light the candles.

I couldn't make words, let alone breathe. I lifted my blood-covered hand, displaying the heartbreaking evidence.

"Oh no," Suki whispered, tears springing to her eyes.

Mai often seemed impassive, almost indifferent, even as she was ordering me to quit bending and go rest. For the first time ever, I actually saw fear in her eyes. "Spirits," she exhaled.

Suki began to melt right before me. Her eyes widened, and she started to shake. "Oh no, Katara, no... What do we do?"

I still couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. The walls were closing in and the only words in my mind were, _You're going to think it's my fault. I did this._

Mai seemed frozen at the periphery of my vision. Everything was beginning to go dark despite all the candlelight in the room. Then Toph thundered into the room like a bolt of bright, angry lightning.

"What happened?" she demanded, and I couldn't decide if she was angry at being woken so abruptly or afraid that something really bad was happening.

The room started spinning, and I was suddenly too lightheaded to sit up any longer. I fell back on the pillow as Suki screamed. Time slowed down. I remember being shaken, and I remember Toph yelling in an unusually deep voice for Mai to get a doctor.

The next morning, I awoke with a start in another room, another bed, one unsoiled with blood. My arms and my womb were empty.

I cried. I cried until the snot flowed in torrents from my nose. I cried until my head screamed at me, begging me to stop. I cried until the shaking finally subsided.

I had given birth to a baby who had already died, and I wasn't even awake to see it happen. I wasn't awake to see them take my baby - _our_ baby - away. Someone asked me the next day if I wanted to see our child, a girl. Our daughter. I fervently shook my head no. Suki and Mai didn't press me. Maybe they didn't think I could handle it. Toph said nothing.

She showed up in my room an hour later with a bundle of blankets in her arms.

"Katara," she said softly.

I began shaking my head again, fear swimming in a river of unwept tears in my head.

"You'll regret it if you don't get to say goodbye," she told me. "And Aang will never even have the chance."

The dam broke again, and I held my arms open. I held our little girl, Aang. I named her Sorrow. She was five months too early. She was gone before she had a chance to live. She looked unhuman. She was smaller than a doll, with shiny red skin, heartbreakingly tiny fingers, and closed eyes. I couldn't tell you if she looked more like you or like me. She looked like loss. She looked like a missed opportunity.

We buried her, by a lake near the fire palace, under a tree older than you, Aang. Older than your last several incarnations.

I stopped getting out of bed after that. I replayed our final moments in my head over and over again. I remembered that kiss on my forehead. I remembered the touch of your hands when you made love to me the last time, knowing it would be far too long before we would see each other again. I remember dreaming that you kissed me goodbye but waking up to find you were gone. I didn't even hear you leave.

We tried to reach you, we did. But no one knew where you were. No one could even reach Zuko. Mai pretends to be fine, but I can tell that she, too, is worried. Suki comes to me in my silent self-made prison to inform me that there was no word as of yet. She sighs, thinking of Sokka I'm sure, but she never cries in front of me. Toph comes to me, but neither of us speak. She sits at the foot of my bed, as if keeping guard, as if she is suddenly taking her assignment to protect me very seriously. Once, I thought I heard her whisper a tearful apology, but her back was to me, and I couldn't find the words to speak. We sit in silence for hours.

My due date came and went. I couldn't eat all day. I couldn't speak. I couldn't acknowledge the truth, what had happened, what should have happened, and how I felt about everything - how badly I missed both of you. I lay in silence, barely moving, as Suki, Mai, and Toph took shifts watching over me, as if afraid of what I might do. They didn't realize I had no energy left. I was useless.

Here I lie with nothing left. There will be nothing here when you return. Just the empty shell of a would-be mother who held a life in her womb and lost it.

I roll onto my side, empty, emotionless. Every day without you, the ache in my chest grows. I don't think I can handle any more pain. I don't think I can handle one more single day without you here. I can't handle not knowing. I am dying a slow, agonizing death, but I am alive and awake. Relief - release - is not coming.

I need you.

I need you here with me.

There is a commotion outside my room, down the hall, somewhere far away, but it's getting closer. I hear it, but it does not register. I can't react; I can't respond. I am waiting for the end.

And then the doors to my bedroom open.

And it's...

It's you.

You are beaming. You are sunshine. You are vigor and life and love. And you are here.

"Katara," you breathe my name like a prayer, and then you are bounding across the room, flying on the air, landing on the bed next to me. You realize suddenly the need for care, and you lift your hands in the air, kneeling on the bed. "I'm sorry - I don't want to hurt the-" You see my flat stomach under the blankets, and your smile becomes impossibly wider. "You had the baby? Katara, you had the baby?"

I can't handle your glee. I can't handle your happiness. I am angry. I am resentful. You weren't _here_. You abandoned me when I needed you most. You left me to suffer this, to fight this, alone.

"What's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? I'm sorry, I am, but I'm here now. I'm back. Where is the baby?" You're craning your neck, searching the room for something you don't realize you will never find. Your words flow like rapids, crashing over the rocks and oblivious to the pain they inflict to unsuspecting swimmers. "Is it a girl? A boy?"

"There _is_ no baby," I say all too harshly, my words poisoned with all the aggression I've been holding back for months.

You don't understand. My words are foreign to your ears, like another language. They don't make sense. "What?"

"She's _dead_ , Aang. Our baby is _dead_. And you weren't here," I accuse. "You _left_ me."

"Katara... Oh no..."

You try to pull me into your arms, but I resist. I fight back. I pummel you with my fists, but my blows are weak and useless. The months of laying in bed barely eating have taken its toll on me. I am weak. I am fragile. You win this fight.

I surrender to your embrace and cry for the first time since I held our dead baby in my arms and fully realized what we had lost. We will never know who she could have been. We will never know if she was supposed to be a waterbender or an airbender or a non-bender. I will never nurse her to sleep and run my fingers through her baby fine hair. I will never sing her the lullabies of my tribe. I will never tell her stories of our love as I tuck her into bed and kiss her cheek. I will never get to watch her grow. I will never teach her how to be a strong woman. I will never have her friendship. I will never watch her fall in love and get married. I have lost everything.

I don't have to tell you this. You know. You understand. You feel my pain, but for you, it is agonizingly fresh. Our tears mix together and fall like rain.

This was supposed to be a sweet reunion. This was supposed to be a happy reunion. It was supposed to be a reunion of three, not two.

You hold me in your arms, and we cry together.

* * *

I take you to see her the next day. You have to support my weight as we walk because I am still weak. You are cross because I have not taken care of myself, and you are frustrated with our friends for failing me, but despite your annoyed words, I know you understand.

You sit me on a boulder near the tree, but you approach the small gravesite alone. You kneel in the grass for a very long time. The wind carries a few of your words back to me, in snippets. I hear your sadness, your regret, your apology. You use some of the old proverbs of your people. You express your love. You run your fingers through the grass over her gravesite. You say goodbye.

You sit quietly for a moment before standing to retrieve me from my place on the rock. You take my hand, and we walk back to the fire palace together.

* * *

 **Okay, it wasn't supposed to have a sad ending, initially, but it just hit me like a barrel of bricks, so I ran with it.**

 **Miscarriages are all too common. I've had my fair share of experience with them. Sometimes the saddest things to write are the most honest and real. Well. Tell me what you thought.**


End file.
